Tin children
by effywho
Summary: It's wartime. All across Britain's cities, the largest mass exodus in living memory is taking place. But the price of safety is rising, and when the lives of two very different children collide, they find themselves thrown headlong into a very different kind of war.


**Chapter One**

It smelled of sweat and tears. Children's chatter filled the air, punctuated only by stern goodbyes and muffled sobs. Waterloo station pulsated with life and desperate conversations. Children: small ones, bigger ones, tough ones and little rich ones, bundled together and tagged like cattle. They clung to their sibling's hands, their mother's skirts, the curled iron towers they passed; they hung on like their young lives depended on it.

Though the din, a melody whispered. The busker played with all the energy in his thin, hungry body; the cheery pennywhistle threaded shanties and jigs through the sad, smoky air.

"Time to go, John."

A young boy, John, looked up at his mother's tearless face. She smiled at him and laid a gentle hand on his sandy head. "Don't look so worried, darling. It's not forever."

"Mum –"

"Madam, I have to ask you to leave the platform." A sour-faced man gestured her away. John looked up (and it was a long way up for such a small boy); the man wore a uniform, a collar strained tight against his big neck, and he had ruddy face that glared at his mother. Anger rippled through his frightened heart. He had to say goodbye. No man alive could stop him.

Apparently his mother was of similar mind. She wrapped her arms around him, quickly, one last warm hug for his adventure. She smelt of home and wild flowers. _Never let go of me._

"Madam, you can't be here."

"Mum don't –"

He couldn't stop the fear from bubbling up out his mouth, weaving through his fingers with all the strength a 10-year-old boy could muster. _Please don't leave me here. Please don't go._

"Goodbye darling," she whispered. "Don't forget to write!" she straightened up, wiping a tear from her blue eyes and smiling bravely at her little son. _Don't be afraid._

"Time to go, boy," said the big-necked uniform man. "Go on now, and your suitcase too, sonny."

_I don't want to._

People surrounded him, a wave of confused, timid children. They washed him away from his mother, from where he belonged. He held his suitcase tight like a hand, the hand of a braver person; his big sister maybe. Panic flicked his heart; it beat a frantic rhythm against his ribs. _Harry, Harry, Harry. _Was she sent away too? _She left me._

The floor trembled beneath his feet. A train, a big, steam train. Smelly, crowded, horribly exciting. John had never been on a real train before. Clutching his bag tight to his side, John pushed through the faceless crowd of unhappy children. A window seat was what he wanted. He wanted to see the world fly out behind them. _Goodbye, London. Goodbye._

No, don't look back. Don't wave. Don't say goodbye.

_Please don't leave me._

"Let me see your tag, deary!" A kind woman was saying. "Ah yes, you're one of mine. Well done, you're all exactly where you should be!"

She beamed at them all. "I'll be looking after you until you reach your new home towns!"

John chewed absently on his tag. _New home town_, he thought. _New, home; new life, new, home..._

All wrong. _I already have a home._

As the train grinded to action, John's head filled with a collage of memories: A tear on his mother's cheek, Gladstone the dog, angry father, big steam train, Harry, new, home...

He held himself together, fingers digging into his jumper tightly. _Don't cry._

Children were packed at the windows. Waving, waving, waving; sad little goodbyes.

Beside him, a girl snuffled into a pink hanky. Long brown hair covered her face like a hood. She sat still and cried until the city broke and melted into green grassy fields. _Don't cry._

Was home still there? If he looked back would he see their little grey terrace, his family waiting for him with tea and a tray of pre-war biscuits? Gladstone would still be there, in John's pretend place. Poor Gladstone; John still wondered if he had done the proper thing.

How he slept, he couldn't tell you. But he did. John's dreams were riddled with steam engines and pretty crying girls and wild, purple flowers. They grew through the pavement outside John's house, beautiful, sharp, wild flowers. Weeds, his father had called them. He said they needed dealt with. His mother had picked them very carefully, and she cared for them like an artist.

_Will there be flowers in London when I go home?_

Sleep. Take the rest you can get, have hope. His mother was a big believer in hope. John tried, but the country looked greyer than London here. Rain pelted the walls of the train and dripped right through his into his brain. Dark skies, dirty fields, mist clung about the window like ghosts. _Go home._

_Please let me go home._

John wondered if his first trip on a train would be his last. His dreams hurt and he shook with the engines power. 'You'll be a man one day,' said the memory of his father. 'That's why I'm going to fight. So that one day, you'll be a man.' _Men don't cry. _

When John woke up, his face was bathed in salty tears.

* * *

Sherlock Holmes was a difficult child. Strange, some people said. The endless dinner guests and cool-faced suit types who traipsed in and out would whisper about him. Watch out for the son, they said. Listen to him.

On this day, he was like any other city boy: going away, holding tight to home.

"Sherlock, you really must put your chin up now," said Mycroft, older and wiser by far at 15. "All this sulking is merely damaging your attitude."

The small, curly-haired child named Sherlock frowned up at his brother. "My attitude won't matter when I live among riff-raff and farmers."

"Don't be silly. And wash your face!" Mycroft scolded him, before he folded his arms and strode away to check his suitcase was suitably packed for the third time that hour.

Sherlock had no intention of washing his face; or ceasing to be silly, for that matter. He sat down atop his own suitcase and closed his eyes. The old wooden floor creaked dustily as Mycroft scurried about. Downstairs, a maid walked lazily, and she gossiped with the cook (who laughed like a pained horse.) There was no one else. Mummy had promised to be here. Grown-ups tell lies sometimes.

"Get up, Sherlock. There are things to be done!"

"Go away," he mumbled, pressing his hands over his ears and snapping open his ice-blue eyes. Dust swirled gently above him. A spider made its web in an unclean corner of ceiling – the maid really was slacking these days. Mycroft's overlarge head appeared above him.

"Up at once! The car will be here any minute you little wretch!"

Sherlock swatted at annoying brother and got reluctantly to his feet.

"I will leave you behind if you insist on this silly time-wasting; and I will likely return home to find only a pile of rubble and the shoes you ARE NOT WEARING!" He clapped like a school teacher. "Put your shoes on at once!"

Sherlock scowled and marched out of the room.

Their house was a big one, quite the envy of the neighbouring world. It stood alone on the outskirts of a secluded borough of London, red-bricked and proud. It had once been quite a grand place, but most of the homes had long since fallen into disrepair for lack of rich families to tend to them. The same could not be said of the Holmes Manor. Mummy was a woman with few causes but a great many talents, and most, if not all of these, resided in the big red house. Her children were, of course, of interest to her; she even loved them. Horticulture was another interest. The grounds were never less than fabulous, the garden staff never anything less than overworked. The house, the house of her late father, was perhaps the most important thing. It had been immaculate...before the war.

It was of no sentimental value to Sherlock (few things were), and as they sped away from the place neither of them called home, neither boy looked back. Silently, the elder Holmes reached out to the younger, and patted his small hand. A kind gesture, maybe. Sherlock knew better. It was a warning: _behave! _

Sherlock had no intention of behaving.


End file.
